2006  TU Delft  Research  Concept  Industry  project  *   

This is my MSc graduation project at the Delft University of Technology for Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, the national museum of art and history in the Netherlands. The outcome of this 8 months research and concept design project was the creation of a new relationship between the museum and it's visitors and a concept invoking new interaction. It is presented in a book, models and a movie showing the concept in the museum.

screenshots of the movie (see below)The Rijksmuseum is currently undergoing major reconstruction works. In 2010, the 'New Rijksmuseum' will reopen the gates of its impressive building to the public. But the Rijksmuseum realised that not only the building needed to change, it's relationship with the visitors could use some reconstruction works as well. Visitors nowadays experience the museum as something useful but obliged, a bit like homework. The goal of this project was to research what influences this relationship and come up with proposals for change.

The research was both practical and theoretical: interviews with visitors and employees from the museum formed the bottom up exploration. The literature research focused on diverse aspects of sociology, psychology and philosophy, investigating the definition culture, questioning the importance of authenticity, denying the need of freedom of choice and exploring how we're all strangers to ourselves. Within this broad context, a future relationship between the Rijksmuseum and it's visitors is designed, creating new layers of interaction with the museum.

To open up this new layers of interaction, I designed a product-concept. A CMA is a device you take around the museum and, at the same time, the CMA takes you around the museum. It triggers you to explore your own routes and create your own selection of art-pieces. Therefore it uses information of other visitors using a CMA. A CMA therefore is something from the visitors, rather than from the museum.

The Rijksmuseum was very enthusiastic about the research done and the designed concept. Currently, it influences the way the Rijksmuseum approaches its visitors and the concept is being taken further in development.

new layers of interactionCMA